Just like anything, mistakes can easily be made when you don’t have much experience towards something. First home buyers must be guided every step of the way when purchasing their first home to make sure common mistakes don’t occur. Two common mistakes first home buyers can make when becoming a homeowner is not keeping their emotions and feelings in check and not doing enough research.
Keeping your Emotions & Feelings in Check
You are buying a home to live in and it most likely won’t be your forever home. Purchasing a home is a lot different to purchasing a tangible item. The level of reasoning you need to have towards purchasing a home is vital as it’s a decision that can impact your future significantly, whether it’s for the better or worst. So, it’s very important that you buy your first home with logic and reasoning rather than letting your emotions and feelings influence your decision.
Buying your first home is not as easy as deciding what shoes to buy, what to buy from the local cafe or what clothes to buy. It is a long process and not something you can easily return and ask for your money back, so you need to be sure it’s what you want and can afford.
Emotions do play a part in purchasing a home when deciding if you can see yourself creating memories and if it’s practical for your lifestyle. However, it should not affect your ability to see clearly by impulsive buying what you think you want or not liking the colour of the wall or the way the current furniture is positioned because you think your furniture will have to be in the same place.
The same thing may happen if you love the home too much. You can become determined to being the new owner of the home that you tell the Property Consultant that you are prepared to pay more than its true market value. This is where research plays an important role because the research you do before purchasing a home will identify if the home you purchase will be an advantage or regret.
Research
The best thing you could do before buying your first home is research and understand your findings. You can never be too diligent! There are two research methods that can assist you with understanding the property industry: researching online and speaking with property experts.
We have put together a list of things first home buyers should research, whether it done online or speaking with a property expert:
- Median house prices in the suburb and surrounding suburbs
- Previous and projected growth in the suburb
- Research the neighbourhood and suburb
- Research similar property sales
- Enquire for different insurance policies
If you research online about entering the property market, make sure you are leveraging information from property data sources. Some sources that can help you are RP Data, realestate.com.au or domain.com.au to help you understand different property markets.
If you are speaking to experts in the property industry, ask them about the property industry and specific suburbs as they are the experts for a reason! As much as you can Google this information, sometimes it’s more valuable to ask someone who’s in the industry.
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